1880, John Singer Sargent, The Standard Bearer from "The Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Civic Guard" (after Frans Hals) -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the museum label: Dutch painter Frans Hals underwent a radical shift in reputation in the late 1860s when, after more than a century of neglect, progressive French artists such as Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet visited the Netherlands to study his technique. Keen to absorb the same lessons, Sargent visited Haarlem for the first time in 1880. He made this spirited copy after a detail of The Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Civic Guard, using even more expressive brushstrokes than the original. Copying the old masters was an essential part of any aspiring painter's education, and Sargent found Hals's works—along with those of Spanish artist Diego Velázquez (1599-1660)—especially useful. He later said, "It's hard to find anyone who knew more about oil-paint than Franz Hals."
1880, John Singer Sargent, The Standard Bearer from "The Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Civic Guard" (after Frans Hals) -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the museum label: Dutch painter Frans Hals underwent a radical shift in reputation in the late 1860s when, after more than a century of neglect, progressive French artists such as Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet visited the Netherlands to study his technique. Keen to absorb the same lessons, Sargent visited Haarlem for the first time in 1880. He made this spirited copy after a detail of The Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Civic Guard, using even more expressive brushstrokes than the original. Copying the old masters was an essential part of any aspiring painter's education, and Sargent found Hals's works—along with those of Spanish artist Diego Velázquez (1599-1660)—especially useful. He later said, "It's hard to find anyone who knew more about oil-paint than Franz Hals."